James S. Burns is currently Chief Executive Officer and director of AssureRx, Health, Inc., a personalized medicine company which specializes in pharmacogenetics for neuropsychiatric disorders. He also serves on the Boards of Symmetry Medical Inc., International BioResources Group and the American Type Culture Collection. His extensive knowledge of the diagnostics industry, along with current and prior management experience make Mr. Burns valuable to the Board in several areas including industry networking, public company operations, and overall corporate strategy.

Peter S. Roddy is currently Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Pain Therapeutics, Inc. He also serves as our Audit Committee Chairman. Mr. Roddy brings significant life science industry experience and accounting/financial skills, which highlight his importance to the Board in areas of regulatory, public company operations and finance related initiatives.

Carl Severinghaus is currently Vice President, Head of Global Sales OEM Components of Tecan Group. His tenure with Tecan has spanned over 20 years. He has served in a variety of Executive Management roles domestically and internationally. Currently, he serves as our Compensation Committee Chairman and a member of our Audit Committee and Nominating & Governance Committee. Mr. Severinghaus has demonstrated executive level management and commercial operations skills, with a focus in sales and marketing. These skill sets and experiences are a great asset to Vermillion as we enter the next phase of market development for OVA1 and begin to plan for the emergence of our PAD program.

Board of Directors.    We recently announced a strong addition to our Board of Directors, Bruce Huebner. Mr. Huebner currently serves as Managing Director at LynxCom Partners, LLC – a Healthcare Consulting Firm with a focus on cancer diagnostics and personalized medicine. Mr. Huebner has over 35 years of experience in the diagnostic industry, and has been a key member of upper management in a number of clinical diagnostic companies including Hybritech, Inc., Gen-Probe, Inc., Nanogen, Inc. and Osmetech Molecular Diagnostics. Mr. Huebner also currently serves on two Boards. His vast experience in the healthcare and molecular diagnostics segments will add a critical set of skills and experiences to our Board’s composition. Not only will Mr. Huebner be an important addition to our Board of Directors, but he will lead a special committee appointed by the Board to evaluate our current sales strategy and develop new initiatives to help accelerate our growth.

Annual Meeting.    Like most public companies, we have historically required advance notice for shareholders to raise matters at the annual meeting of shareholders. Given some of the assertions made by certain shareholders, the Nominating and Governance Committee of the Board undertook a review of our Bylaws, rights plan and Certificate of Incorporation and a comparison of similar provisions applicable to comparable companies. Based on the recommendation of the Governance Committee, the Board chose to amend the Bylaws to reduce the advance notice period required for the annual meeting to 90 days prior to the estimated meeting date. We believe this balances the importance of allowing certain shareholders the ability to raise matters at the annual shareholder meeting with the importance of giving notice to all shareholders and the Board in advance of the meeting to allow for deliberate consideration of proposals.

Peer-reviewed publication.    A study published online ahead of print in the June 2011 edition of Obstetrics & Gynecology demonstrated that American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology (ACOG) guidelines for determining the likelihood that an ovarian mass is cancerous prior to surgery would accurately identify more women with ovarian cancer if the OVA1 blood test were used in place of the currently recommended CA 125 blood test. This manuscript will be used not only as an important sales aid but also as evidence provided to payers to increase coverage of OVA1.

Reimbursement.    We have continually expanded payer coverage for OVA1such that total coverage for OVA1 is now approximately 80 million lives. Along with Medicare and some regional plans, 17 independent Blue Cross Blue Shield plans, representing approximately 33.5 million lives, are covering OVA1. We continue to work with payers to increase coverage for OVA1.

Intellectual property.    We have been issued one patent from the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) (patent # 7,867,719; Beta-2 microglobulin as a biomarker for peripheral artery disease) for PAD biomarkers and more recently received a notice of allowance for a patent entitled “Panel of Biomarkers for Peripheral Artery Disease.” The expanding patent portfolio not just for peripheral artery disease but also for our other diagnostic programs plays a key role in creating shareholder value and protecting our diagnostic assets.

Intended use study.    We have enrolled more than half of our target sample size in the intended use study for VASLCIR and remain on-track to have top-line data during the third quarter. Based on these data, we will make strategic and tactical decisions directed at commercializing VASCLIR.